Trump and Mamdani Trade Praise in Oval Office Meeting on Affordability

President Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met for the first time at the White House on Friday, and after months of trading harsh insults, both men emphasized agreement on lowering living costs, CNBC, NBC News and CBS News reported.

Mr. Trump had called Mr. Mamdani a “communist lunatic” and Mr. Mamdani had called the president a “despot,” NBC News noted. In the Oval Office, Mr. Trump called him “a very rational person” and said, “I think you’re going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor. The better he does, the happier I am.” Asked if he would be comfortable living in New York with Mr. Mamdani as mayor, he said, “Yeah, I would, especially after the meeting,” NBC News reported.

Mr. Mamdani described the meeting as “productive” and “focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers.” He said they spoke about rent, groceries and utilities.

The president helped his guest through awkward questions. When Mr. Mamdani was asked, for the second time, about having called Mr. Trump a fascist, the president said: “That’s OK, you can just say yes. It’s easier than explaining it,” CNBC reported. Asked about the word “despot,” Mr. Trump said he had been “called much worse,” and CBS News quoted him saying of the “communist” label: “He’s got views that are a little out there, but who knows.” CBS News noted Mr. Mamdani calls himself a democratic socialist and stood by that label.

On money, Mr. Trump seemed to back away from his threat to withhold federal funding from the city. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said, CNBC reported; to CBS News he said, “I expect to be helping him, not hurting him.” CBS News said he had not fully dropped the threat but called it unlikely. They also found common ground on getting the utility Con Edison to lower rates. “We’ve gotten fuel prices way down, but it hasn’t shown up in Con Edison,” Mr. Trump said, and Mr. Mamdani answered “Absolutely,” CNBC reported.

The tone was a sharp turn. Days before the Nov. 4 election, Mr. Trump had encouraged people to vote for Mr. Mamdani’s chief rival, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, CBS News said. CNBC noted that only two days earlier Mr. Trump had called him the “Communist Mayor of New York City.” Mr. Mamdani had attacked the president in his victory speech.

Mr. Trump also pointed to politics. “A lot of my voters actually voted for” Mr. Mamdani, he said, adding, “One in 10, and I’m OK with that,” in remarks NBC News matched against its exit polls, which found that 10 percent of New York City voters who backed Mr. Trump last year voted for Mr. Mamdani. CNBC observed that Democrats who won races this month focused relentlessly on affordability, a word Mr. Trump has chafed at while insisting prices are down, even as his approval ratings have fallen in many polls with the cost of living a main concern.

Critics on the right were not all persuaded. CBS News noted that Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican candidate for governor of New York, had earlier this month called Mr. Mamdani an “Antisemite Jihadist Communist”; asked whether he agreed that Mr. Mamdani is a “jihadist,” Mr. Trump said no.